*pixie dust and elfin tales*

It was a regular Saturday morning when I sat in the garden. I was around 4 to 7 years old. I sat really still. I especially wore my floral dress. I sat quiet and waited, watching intently. I stared at the flowers, the petals, the stems, the leaves. I tried to emanate a peaceful aura and mentally spoke kind words, just in case they could hear my thoughts. “You can trust me,’ I thought, ‘I really want to meet you. Please be my friend.” But the fairies never came.

The Tooth Fairy (or Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus . . .): a fun and harmless fiction, or a pointless justification for lying to children?

The fairies never came. So what? Did that make me feel hatred or resentful towards anyone? No. I still believed in fairies. I knew it was too much of a risk for them to show themselves and I didn’t mind. I was enchanted.

Seriously now, what would childhood be without fantasy? Adulthood, that’s what! And we all know how that sucks. Without the memories of childhood fantasies we would be a bleak, uninspired bunch. We need those fantasies. Children who perhaps live ‘ugly’ realities could possibly only escape and survive through their imaginations. How can they retreat to their happy place without it?

Children who only sit in front of the TV and don’t play interactive games would lead pretty mundane lives.

Imagination is good for us, even as adults. It’s all in the mind right? I don’t want to live in a world where Father Christmas doesn’t exist, I don’t want to live in a world where the tooth fairy doesn’t fetch your teeth and leave you coins. Loosing a tooth would be so boring, maybe even traumatic. I look forward to the day I can share the magical world of fantasy with my son. If I think about it I’m pretty sure 80% of the beauty in this world is magic and the rest is reality.

Look at a pigeon and see it with your adult eyes. Just a pooping nuisance for your car right? Ask a 10 month old to look at the same bird and see his reaction. Amazement, awe, excitement, that’s what you’ll see. Magic, fantasy, imagination, it’s not only a way of learning through play. It’s a wonderful part of life for a child and it should be. It’s innocence. In a world where the beauty of nature is ever fading, don’t take that away from them.